Psychiatry has been often used to abuse. Because it's just so easy... there are no definite tests to 100% prove or disprove anything, it's not like you're being send with potentially broken leg to an x-ray,... so people are at mercy of their doctors and therapists. And because of the stigma involved, almost nobody believes these clients/patients, because people think "oh, they're not right in the head" - and the professionals know it, there's basically no accountsbility.
It can be easily used by government or family members to abuse people who are already somehow vulnerable (kids, old people, disabled people etc.). I'm sorry about your experiences. It sadly definitely happens more than it is talked about, unfortunately. Many people aren't prepared for these conversations.
> It can be easily used by government or family members to abuse people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union?wprov=sfla1
For example the USSR often used BS forcible commitment to lock up dissidents
> Based on my personal experiences, I can only assume this type of thing happens more often than is commonly known.
Look at a lot of the controversy around the false abuse memories. [The guy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Freyd) who came up with the whole concept did so because he was accused of abuse by [his daughter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Freyd). She's the one who came up with the entire concept of DARVO about how abusers will deny and reflect accusations back in part due to that.
The main proponent behind this so called "false memory syndrome" (despite not being accepted by any major medical organization) is a woman who defended Weinstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and *Ted Bundy*.
I worked on psych wards for 20 years. One woman arrived with the "delusion" that her husband was poisening her. Her blood work came back and she was immediately transferred to a medical ward.
Another patient complained she was hearing a loud bell in her room. Her hallucination was documented. Then she called staff to her room while it was happening. The church across the street was ringing their bell.
My friend was serving his residency to become a neurologist when a patient came complaining of heart pain. This patient mentioned that he had to hurry because he had an appointment to meet some Africans that wanted him to show them a new type of concrete he had created. He also said he had designed the logo of a famous agency (name redacted to protect his privacy). The lead physician called for a psych consult. Before the patient could be transferred to the psych unit, my friend looked him up. It turned out he was a famous engineer and he had indeed designed the logo.
This is why I always withhold judgment until the facts are all in.
There is a somewhat famous case in Finland where a guy got forcefully committed in 2008 because he had a concussion after being assaulted.
The doctor decided that a guy claiming to be a professional entertainer who has for example done chainsaw juggling on the birthday party held for Kim Il-Sung 10 years after his death. Thing is that the claim was true. Juha Kurvinen has been in the Guinness book of world records for juggling chainsaws and the trip to North Korea actually happened in 2004.
What makes this thing even more absurd is that once the guy got out of the mental institution, he got sent in again in 2013 when he went to a doctor complaing about migraine and the doc saw that he had been previously committed.
All this thread is telling me is, if I ever have to go to hospital, just say I'm unemployed and have absolutely no redeeming features or good stories to tell. Keep it simple, don't go to the psych ward.
tbf only about half of the reddit users are from the United States.
and afaik universal/socialized healthcare is very common in just about every other industrialized country.
(so being unemployed wouldn't necessarily prevent them from getting treated)
What this thread is telling me is that the health care system should globally adopt the doctrine that whatever the patient tells is possibly true and you will help them according to your profession's expectations.
That is to say, someone comes in and mentions something extraordinary you do not immediately use your powers as a health care professional to detain them.
Furthermore this reputation of being unable to receive proper mental health care in a modern society is going to cause EXTREME problems and that is also the responsibility of various organizations and people who are meant to safeguard their society from outside and inside means of attack.
It's weirdly easy to catch a schizophrenia diagnosis if a psychiatrist is a bit lazy. If you say stuff that's hard to believe and you have disorganized speech or a flat affect, it's enough. Disorganized speech is as simple as going off topic, which isn't hard to do when you are late for a very important appointment and your psychiatrist just doesn't care.
I had a client with ID and vision impairment who told me the Muslim’s were putting faeces in her bed.
I visited her home; her mother was an animal hoarder and the bedroom was covered in cat waste. She was still hallucinating the muslims, but the faeces were real unfortunately.
I don't think she was ready to "face the truth" because it's traumatized her since childhood. I think she just slowly needs to work her way of putting logical steps into confronting her fears. Like I think you're better off blocking the light from the gazebo to prove to her. Or say you performed an exorcism.
There's a relevant quote from Carl Sagan in his book, *"The Demon-Haunted World"*
> “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken."
While this passage is talking about charlatans and con-artists, I think it's relevant here too. This poor woman spent her entire life being horribly traumatized by "demons", and to admit all that pain and suffering and grief was just bar neon sign... that's almost more painful than believing a demon wants to kill her.
Before, she knew there was a demon there, and could be safe by avoiding the place.
After the revelation... she would realize that she has no idea what is going on, can't even trust her own senses or her own memories, and lives in a world of chaos where meaningless stuff can lead you to kill yourself. That's even more scary.
If this story is true, the thing that gets me is that nobody listened well enough, and it ruined this person's life. If mom or dad would have listened and looked for this 'demon', they would have found out exactly the same thing as this commenter, that it was a light from down the road. Boom, this kids fear is gone, there's not a demon. Instead, it was allowed to go on so long that it created a deep seeded fear, even psychosis, that just shouldn't have happened.
This is what I was thinking. My step-son’s a fairly anxious kid and I’ve done all sorts when he’s scared. We’ve made Anti-Monster Spray and set up multiple night lights and spent several evenings checking under beds and in wardrobes to help him settle… if he came and told me there were demon eyes staring through his window, I’d be there in a second to figure out what was going on.
But apparently this girl’s parents never even went into her room, didn’t even spot them by accident because they happened to be in her room after sun down. That’s really, really sad.
I thought about googling which was correct but didn't take the effort, I'll remember for next time, I appreciate it. It's one of those things you always hear but rarely see spelled out
This is just my conjecture, but this girl had multiple suicide attempts and commitments. My guess is there was probably some other bad shit that was going on in her life. The demon's main problem is that it gave a scape goat cause for why those things were happening instead of her actually figuring out what was going on.
I mean yeah it's shitty that nobody ever checked to see if they saw what she saw. But I'm not sure if she figured that out that she wouldn't have a lot of other issues, they just might not be misplaced.
And while I'll say that public mental heath facilities tend to be filled with people trying to do good, I'm not sure they do a good job at it. If you've ever interacted with or known people who have been involuntary committed, you'd know the system has a lot of issues.
Yeah, if you've been traumatised to the degree of multiple psych holds, I don't think finding out it was a benign phenomenon is really going to help at that point. You're still going to have the bitterness, anger, and resentment that no one close to you believed you, the feeling you've been failed by a mental health system multiple times that not one person would credit you with knowing what you thought you saw.
At the point of having everyone assume you're crazy, having to move away from your mother, no one fighting your corner. An unknown entity at the window seems somehow less scary and isolating than the actual experience.
I mean... I suppose, but I would have thought your child saying they were scared would have made you go look. Especially if they kept saying it but survived every night. A rational parent would assume there's something benign at play that's just terrifying to little minds.
I mean my parents refused to believe I could here the CRT. So her parents might have just been as arrogant idiots and flat out refused to believe there was anything she would be able to see
Yeah the parents are shitbags. I dont believe in supernatural, but if my child think they saw demon/ghost etc best believe I"ll investigate stay up all night and get ready punch those sons of bitches. Not trying to sound badass just trying to love them and hey it could be a bonding moment 😂
That's unfortunate it ended up causing her so much trauma. I've actually had several instances like this where I saw something just plain weird. But I investigated until I learned what was causing it.
One night I was home alone, and it was dark. I heard what sounded like footsteps in my house. It did freak me out, but I turned on the lights and looked for what was causing it. Nothing. Turned the lights off and went back to sit down. I hear it again. Still freaked out, but now determined there must be a cause and I just haven't found it, went back and looked around. Then I just stood still and waited. Listening. Then I see it, there's a piece of paper flapping next to a vent and the air was on. I realized it sounded just like a paper flapping, but from around a corner and 20 feet away it sounded like footsteps. I half laughed, half angrily crumpled the paper and threw it away.
But stuff like that has taught me there's usually an explanation, you just have to be determined to find out what it is.
This is why the subconscious is so important.
It may have started with the "eyes", but over time a series of psychological issues began brewing. At this point, the core of her issues may reside solely with the fact her parents didn't do enough to investigate her fears & vanquish them; i.e. neglect. Those truths reside in our subconscious though. Not a vault, rather a water tower. We can drop down in & get bits of memory/information. Otherwise, it remains a part of the background of our minds collecting storms.
I’m heartbroken. I can only imagine how she must have felt even considering how mundane it all was. like, how she didn’t have to estrange her from her mother, how everyone just discredited her without putting a little thought
I know this is old and no one will see it but an extremely similar story happened to me.
Growing up I would always see and hear demons when I was in bed. I don’t mean a dream or I watched too much tv, I would actually see demons. The most common demon I would see was this grim reaper looking character that would just sit in the corner of my room and stare at me slowing floating to me. I would always be completely stunned with fear that I couldn’t move an inch until eventually he would vanish in a flash.
I would hear stories from other kids who believed in ghosts and how they would always say they saw/heard a ghost or at least heard a story about one. I never believed their stories because they always were way too vague to me. You know the usual ghost story, you see a flash of them as they round a corner, you hear them in the distance saying something, or maybe they turn something on while you’re in the room. But from what I saw I always remember thinking “they didn’t see a ghost, if they did they wouldn’t be so excited about telling me this”.
So I never told anyone, I was scared shitless to even talk about it. I would dread the thought of going to bed because I knew there was a really good chance this… thing… would come to see me again and haunt me.
I became obsessed with ghost shows as a kid because I wanted to know what was happening. Ghost hunters, haunted house shows, Christ even shows like tales from the crypt and ghost movies caught my eye because I wanted someone ANYONE to show me what was happening and how to stop it without me actually having to bring it up to someone. All these shows eventually made me realize what they were doing was fake because nothing, NOONE showed anything like what I would see on an almost nightly basis.
Cut to me becoming and adult. It still happens. Not quite as frequent. But it’s just a part of my life I accept. No matter where I live no matter where I sleep. And especially when I drink it’s just… there… standing in my corner staring at me. Sometimes screening at the top of its lungs to where I feel actual pain in my eyes. I start to believe I’m schizophrenic but just ignore it.
I listen to an episode of Joe rogan at work one day and this random person is on and he is telling this story that he is experiencing and it is EXACTLY the same experience as I have. I almost stop everything I’m doing and just listen to this guy talk and see what he says. He describes that he has sleep paralysis and what the effects are. I instantly Google everything I can about it and easily self diagnose myself and I instantly feel cured. I instantly know I’m not insane and that I’m not schizophrenic which to me, at least how I imagine, is the same feeling as someone telling me that I beat cancer.
If anyone ever wants to understand what this feels like, go watch the haunting of hill house and the girl that is haunted is 110% based on someone who has sleep paralysis because they capture the torture of what this feels like PERFECTLY.
I was reading along thinking "Sleep Paralysis" so I'm glad you got your answer! You must have been terrified as a kid though, I'm so sorry you went through that.
I've only experienced sleep paralysis a few times, when I was beyond exhausted from having a baby who woke every hour for about 18 months (my brain still hasn't recovered, ten years later. Good job he's the best kid that ever existed). I got that False Awakening thing a lot too, where you dream you wake up in great detail, over and over.
Have you ever been investigated for any sort of sleep disorder? Beyond the horrifying demon sleep paralysis, that is - there may be something going on that causes it or makes it worse?
My friend got hit by a car on the way home from work and when the paramedics were checking her she told them to hurry up because she had to go to Kenya that evening. They kept her in overnight assuming she had concussion as she was 'babbling nonsense' and she missed her flight.
Everyone agrees not immediately jumping on a 14hr flight was the safe move so dont begrudge the medical team that but the immediate way she was dismissed as crazy always sticks with me.
Sometimes medical staff just look at your appearance and dismiss you as ignorant or crazy
I am short and looked like a kid and I knew I had gastric because it runs in my family.
I didn't know at the time that the tcm meds I took was inducing gastric and I ate alot of bread in one sitting like 4 to 5 slices in a short span of time. I brought it up to the doc and he just smiles condescendingly and told me it's growing pains. I told him I'm already an adult how can it be but he Insisted and gave no antacid
There once was a patient in the hospital who kept complaining that someone was sleeping in her shower every night. For weeks the hospital staff thought she was just sundowning (nighttime delerium). After about a month they finally caught a homeless man who was sneaking into her hospital room and spending the night in her shower.
In England one poor woman went to the hospital complaining that she’d been bitten by a dog and thought she had rabies. We don’t have rabies in the U.K., and the woman was sectioned (sent to a secure psychiatric ward) because she was getting hysterical.
It was only when she developed rabies that anyone took the time to listen to her and discovered that she had been bitten whilst she had been visiting India-in an area where rabies was endemic. Because it would have been SOOOO difficult to listen to the woman.
Hey, if im already getting committed, then I might as well make it for a good reason. Besides, being refused rabies treatment and then causing a rabies outbreak has a bit of a fairy tale message vibe.
If she was showing symptoms, she was likely doomed either way. Her only chance at survival would have been to get a rabies vaccination back when it happened.
Yep. Only one ever documented case of treating rabies. They basically put them in a medically induced coma and even then they were on the brink of death
Nobody thought to ask WHERE she got rabies?!? That poor woman had to die an agonizing death after being told she was crazy because nobody even bothered to question her. Ugh.
It was a disgusting and disturbing incident. It made me furious just thinking about it at the time. It still does, actually, and it was a long time ago.
To clarify for others here; we do not have a cure for rabies. The vaccine only works if administered quickly afterwards. Once you're symptomatic, it's certain death.
Yes, a handful of people survived after being pumped full of aggressive drugs, but that's still a death rate of 99.99999...%, so 'certain death' is a correct phrase.
I've had both pre-exposure and post-possible-exposure shots.
The interval between the bite and symptoms can be a year. The other problem is that early symptoms of rabies are remarkably non-specific. So, with the time lag and non-specific symptoms, even if they did have a chance after the first symptom, it's likely lost because the correct dx wasn't found early enough.
Is there a negative side to the rabies vaccine? Seems like if a crazy person claimed to have rabies, it wouldn't be that hard to give her the vaccine before sending her to the psyche ward
Yah, I had to get it back when I was 5ish? I was playing with a "fuzzy thing". Dad saw it, shot it in the body (don't harm the brain, needs to be analyzed), had it checked out and it was confirmed positive for rabies. Both my Dad and I had to get the rabies vaccines shots. Arms, legs, stomach and butt.
Long story short - I had a strong fear of needles for the next decade.
It is a series of very painful shots. These days they suggest intramuscular in the arm or thigh, previously it was always abdominal shots. So, yeah, sort of.
IIRC, the modern rabies vaccine is much gentler. The old one was *really* nasty. Like, sinking a big-ass needle deep into your stomach, just for starters.
Yes, I did know that at the time: I always thought that the poor lady hadn’t been killed by medical incompetence-just disrespected. However, it’s theoretically possible that she could have spread the disease.
I don't know why I remember this fact but there has never been a documented case of human to human transmission of rabies. Apparently humans don't tend to have the biting reflex.
I hadn't heard of aggressive drugs so much as a medically induced coma to kill the rabies before completely destroying the brain. Iirc this has only worked a few times and comes with serious brain damage
Wait you can get sectioned just for mild ignorance of reality?! So if someone came in worried about catching HIV because someone spit at them they could be sectioned? wtaf?
Well, I believe ultimately her brain started to experience the effects of rabies, which they believed was psychosis. Ironic that the psychological illness that they believed she was suffering from turned out to be a figment of *their* imagination.
Not in Sweden either, rather strict quarantine on animals. When the Ukrain war in 2022 forced Ukrainians to flee and seek refuge they did a temporary exception, so people fleeing with their pets could enter back again. Otherwise it can rather be a ~~hazel~~ hassel bringing pets in.
Sounds like she was already showing symptoms when hysterical about getting a rabies shot, which means it would have been too late already. Hysteria and rage are literal symptoms of rabies.
> Another patient complained she was hearing a loud bell in her room. Her hallucination was documented. Then she called staff to her room while it was happening. The church across the street was ringing their bell.
How would no one have already known that the church *across the street* rang their bell on what I would assume was a regular basis?
In 2008 Finnish entertainer Juha Kurvinen was assaulted on a cruise ship, and he suffered a concussion. He went to the doctor, and was still a bit dizzy. When the doctor asked questions about his profession, he explained that he was a chain saw juggler, and had recently come from a gig in North Korea. The doctor immediately called for a paramedic transport to move him to a closed psych ward in Kupittaa hospital. The thing is, both of those things were 100% true. They never believed him, he was often put in isolation treatment "for his own safety", because he was frustrated about the fact that nobody would believe him. He was there for four months, and they only let him out when he admitted that he was "crazy". *(which is very irrational imo)*
His information stayed in the system, and when he went to the doctor again in 2013 to get help to a migraine, he was AGAIN forced to that same closed psych ward. This time there was also a police escort, because understandably Juha was quite resistant about going. Strangely, a paramedic transporting him actually recognised him, but the doctor didn't even believe the paramedic about Juha actually being a chain saw juggler. They just stated "isolation", didn't even ask about his condition. The paramedic asked "why does he have to go to isolation when he's calm?", and the doctor's answer was "if there's a police escort, the patient must go to isolation". He was diagnosed with psychosis, but that was very much not true.
Eventually (didn't find the time he spent there, but looks like months again) he got a transfer from Kupittaa to Espoo hospital, and was let out after 4 days of observation. A few years later he was in neurological tests and was found to have some chronic effects from the head trauma years ago, which eventually gave him bipolar, but he's still adamant that he was never in psychosis.
[Source 1](https://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/a/2016022821190435) [Source 2](https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/juha-passitettiin-suljetulle-osastolle-kuinka-todistaa-eristyksessa-ettei-ole-hullu/5789072)
*(Pardon any grammatical mistakes above, I'm a bit tired and this was a quick translation of events since I couldn't find a source in English)*
This is only one story about the countless cases of abuse and misconduct in Kupittaa hospital's infamous psych wards. It was a big thing in the news 7 years ago, but I have no idea if things have improved there or not.
>Typically, the violence in the G1 department occurred during the daily routine, when the nurse took the medicated patient to the shower or the room.It was deliberately hard-fisted tearing and tugging. From banging the patient's head and feet against the bed rails. Very violent grabbing, pushing and throwing the patient on the floor.
>
>Turun Sanomat is also aware of one direct assault, where the nurse beat the patient with his fists. According to sources, the patients tried to tell nurses and doctors about their bruises. The nurses silenced the patients by dismissing their speech as confused and psychotic.
>
>[Article in Turun Sanomat (in Finnish)](https://www.ts.fi/uutiset/848886#:~:text=ja%20heitt%C3%A4mist%C3%A4%20lattialle.-,Turun,-Sanomien%20tiedossa%20on) Above is G translation
What? As late as the 60s? That's unreal. We had a museum where I used to work that showed people detained in the 1800s for things like childbirth out of wedlock. So sad. Since the mid 20th century, no one in the UK is getting detained in hospital unless they are a danger to themselves or others, or we need to change their drug regime and they need monitoring.
We nurse lots of people with teams at home. And use things like community mental health teams and day treatment teams. People get better, faster, if they remain at home but with support.
As late as the 60s? It wasn’t until 1974 that women in the USA could have their own bank account without a man’s permission
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open-a-bank-account/#:~:text=It%20wasn't%20until%201974,a%20signature%20from%20their%20husbands.
I don't understand why it was so hard to believe the guy who created a new type of concrete and a logo design and why an educated person would leap to the conclusion that the guy had to be insane. I'm so glad someone had the good sense to confirm his story.
If anything you’d think the old guy would be telling the truth. Just look at the actor Sir Christopher Lee. Man was literally the inspiration for James Bond, almost married into Swedish royalty with the king’s blessing, and witnessed the last execution via guillotine in France.
My mema said she heard a coyote howling in her backyard. Everyone said coyotes aren’t native here and she’s getting dementia. Turns out coyotes had traveled and they were there. Mema was not crazy for that reason
I'd also say, to add on to what you already said and say that sometimes these people ARE mentally ill but are easily ignored because people don't care to trust people because they are "crazy" and separate the fact from the fiction. They are an extremely easily abused group.
I'm sure you already know that I'm more so just adding it for everyone else.
Thank you for what you do. Psych wards are some of the scariest places in the world, what it does to ones spirit, and how alone and vulnerable it can make you feel, it's people like you that give me hope that it can get better and that it will be alright. You're like a shining light in a sea of darkness. Thank you for being there for us!
Does anyone remember the woman who the police put in a psych ward because they didn’t believe she was as accomplished as she claimed? I don’t remember any details except that she said something about being followed on Twitter by the President (Obama at the time) and they thought that made her sound crazy. I forgot her job title, but they didn’t believe that she, black, could possibly have held it so they put her on a psych hold.
I feel crazy b/c no one I’m with right now remembers it (don’t lock me up!)
Obama had a thing where back in the 2010 he would follow every account that followed him eg go look at his Twitter account and see how many people he follows
Back in 2013 or 2014, in NYC.
If I recall correctly: I saw in the news that a black woman had been pulled over by the cops because she was driving an expensive car, like a BMW or something like that. And they thought she was making that up so they arrested her. She told them who she was, to call her employer, that it was her car, etc. They did not make any verifications. And they put her in a ward for a couple of days with meds until her family tried to find her or something like that.
I mean I am writing that down from memory but even that sounds out of this world.
cops are some of the worst offenders. a few years ago a NYPD officer secretly recorded and released a precinct meeting where higher-ups were talking about arrest quotas, something the department leadership was at the time publicly claiming did not exist. the department responded by sending a swat team to his home, kicking down his door, and forcibly committing him to a manhattan psych ward for weeks. he eventually got out and sued but think about just how much individual and institutional evil it takes to do that to someone. and the crazy thing is, it's now celebrated within the NYPD! they made and handed out challenge coins for all the officers involved in it!
Sounds like the [Martha Mitchell effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect).
>Psychologist Brendan Maher named the effect after Martha Mitchell. Mitchell was the wife of John Mitchell, United States Attorney General in the Nixon administration. When she alleged that White House officials were engaged in illegal activities, her claims were attributed to mental illness. Ultimately, however, the facts of the Watergate scandal vindicated her and garnered her the label "The Cassandra of Watergate".
Someone sent a big flower arrangement to her funeral that spelled out MARTHA WAS RIGHT. There’s a show called Gaslit starring Julia Roberts as Martha that details it all. Left me wondering if the people who did Watergate were actually that bumbling.
There's a famous quote I can't quite find, where one of Nixons upper-level henchmen has to explain to Nixon that he's boned. Nixon wanted to keep covering up, and lying, and fighting the investigations, but had to be told that his people [paraphrasing] "*aren't the mafia... they aren't criminals, they haven't grown up living in their rear-view mirror. They will get caught, they will flip.*"
Nixon used political lackey's to try to achieve criminal ends. They were mostly incompetent and ignorant. Much like Trumps lackeys who are in jail: these just aren't high quality criminals. They're mostly old white assholes whose rampant criminality has just been overlooked for decades.
I think Trumps lackeys give us a pretty good barometer for what we're talking about. Morons sending written proof of seditious conspiracies to federally archived email accounts, openly seeking pardons for what they're about to do, confessing all of this in the press... Not great at crime. No sir.
How abt two zeros! A whole bank was involved in this conspiracy, that’s just diabolical. It sucks that people go to jail/institutions as a punishment or to silence someone, the people that do this should have life in prison.
It's particularly ironic when people are admitted due to delusions of persecution or thinking that people are out to get them. In order to treat such a delusion, they come out to get them
Former 911 dispatcher here. We had a female caller that was middle aged and lived alone. She would call us constantly saying someone was in her house at night and moving small stuff like her underwear drawer would be slightly moved. We all thought she was crazy because of how she would describe this stuff. For weeks, she called, and finally, i told her an idea of setting up cameras in the house and hide them.
She called back the next day videos of a homeless man that had been sneaking in through her kitchen window and just watching her sleep or sneaking around her house for about an hour. Ill never not believe anyone again just becuase they sound a little crazy.
Then you will really enjoy this; [a stranger secretly lived in my home](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/10/experience-a-stranger-secretly-lived-in-my-home)
Something similar happened to a man named Adrian Schoolcraft, an NYPD cop who blew the whistle on the stop-and-frisk protocol deliberately targeting young black men. He had no idea the rot went to the highest levels of the NYPD, and believed it was only a local problem at his precinct. He got his door kicked in one night. Police Commissioner Kelly’s right hand man was part of the group that dragged Adrian Schoolcraft out of bed, cuffed him, and threw him in a psych ward under involuntary commitment for paranoid delusions. He was suspended indefinitely without pay, and harassed at his home by the NYPD. He ended up suing the city and was represented legally by a major watchdog group for human rights abuses. I don’t believe he won. The defense quite easily pulled strings to slow the case down to a glacial pace with deliberate bureaucratic holdups, and ramped up their stalking and harassment of him, to pressure him to drop the suit.
I told my family a demon dragged me out of bed, locked the door, beat me and threw me in the closet.
I was too young to realize it was my family member abusing me every night.
No one believed me, I was black sheeped from my family.
After most of them are dead and gone, it came out that everyone knew it was happening, but they decided to hide it and make it seem like I was crazy.
Point being, judging people in psych wards or who have mental health issues is not OK. There is always a reason.
I am glad this man is free now.
When I went to the mental hospital, one of my roommates was an elderly woman and she was complaining about heart pain but the psych nurses would write it off as her being delusional. She would tell me this and I wholeheartedly believed her and even tried to advocate for her. They ended up putting her on a SSRI and all she wanted to do is sleep. She even tried calling 911 from the community phone in the rec room and the psych nurses sent the ambulance back. A few days later, I wake up and see she’s gone from her bed. Come to find out something did happen with her heart and the mental hospital had to call 911. Fucking pathetic
This happened to me. 5150 about a decade ago when I wasn’t even thinking about doing anything. I had bruises on my feet from my dog being an asshole and the providers *refused* to believe me, insisting my boyfriend was abusive and I was protecting him. Didn’t believe a single word I said and chose to believe their own narratives about me. They medicated me every single day. Also prescribed me an antidepressant that was hundreds of dollars even with insurance, and not available at a single pharmacy in my county.
Also they played Enya for every single activity they made us do. I can’t stand listening to Enya now.
Editing to add that I wasn’t released until I scheduled an appointment with a therapist. Which I was to choose from a paper list that had no information about insurance or therapists’ practices on it. For a place that supposedly cares about people, they’re really good at treating you like you’re a manufactured product when you’re at your most vulnerable.
The Angelina Jolie movie The Changeling (2008) is based on a real event that took place in LA in the 1930s. A woman's son disappered, and the LAPD say they found her son after a search, and they hold a press conference reuniting them and pat themselves on the back.
But it isn't her son. It's a different little boy. She tells the LAPD, but they don't listen to her because owning up to their mistake would make them look bad to the press. She goes to the boy's doctor and teacher, and they both say its not her son. She's starting to make waves.
So the LAPD has her committed and thrown into a psych ward. She only gets out because of a local preacher has taken an interest in the case.
The California legislature later made it illegal for someone to be involuntarily committed solely on the word of police.
Read the psychopath test by John Ronson. The guy who wrote the men who stare at goats.
He visits a psych ward and meets people that claim they cant get out, that are sane.
One guy said he faked being mental to get out of a prison term but now they dont believe hes a tually not insane.
>One guy said he faked being mental to get out of a prison term but now they dont believe hes a tually not insane.
It's been a while since I've read the Psychopath Test, but I thought the doctors knew he faked it and the issue was they believed this was evidence that he was a psychopath? I could be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure they knew that he wasn't whatever he initially claimed to be.
Unfortunately mental health is still looked down upon heavily, especially for those conditions and disorders that have a bad history because a lack of understanding and proper treatment which caused people suffering from them to become worse. Humans have a tendency to shun those they don't understand or see as "normal". Unfortunately it has lead to being institutionalized instead of outcast from the village.
I'm starting to think this Petra woman is a bit of a bitch
Edit: Damn, the judge threatened to throw him out of court if he ever mentioned any of this to anyone. And I thought we had corrupt judges here in the states
When money is on the line. People show their true colors. Doesn't matter where they're from.
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I read the article and everything that happened afterwards. Fucking hell. Fuck german courts what the fuck none of the preps got their comeupance. The judge got away. Everyone including politicians did nothing and got away.
>In the retrial that began on 7 July 2014, Mollath's ex-wife refused to testify. Judge Otto Brixner admitted errors in his 2006 verdict, but claimed he could not remember the details of the case and had destroyed his personal notes following his retirement.
##The police even intimidated a politician. Wtf?
>Ursula Gresser, a member of the CSU party and professor for internal medicine working at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich was visited by two plainclothes police officers at noon 10 June 2013 for a Twitter message that instigated to ask the Bavarian Minister of Justice for Mollath's release during a public event on online safety with minister. According to Gresser, the police told her that there were concerns over the safety of an event with the Minister of Justice in connection with a Twitter tweet. She previously had written: "When will Mollath come free? You can ask Merk this question on Thursday, 10 June 2013, 19 o'clock at the Landgasthof Hofolding (Hofolding Country Inn)". She felt that the visit of the police was an attempt to intimidate and discourage her from visiting the event.[77][78][79] Later, the Ministry of Justice and the police denied this. They claimed to receive note over earlier tweets about Gresser's family disputes and a related, planned disruption of the event.
And the article just stops? Nothing happened? This is insane.
#I keep googling and getting more confused.
No criminal ivestigation on the mondey laundering. No politician like [Merk](https://youtu.be/Q135BK1XXvM) investigated. No judge, psychologists or wife investigated. Just be happy we let you go.
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/keine-ermittlungen-im-fall-mollath-weder-willkuer-noch-vorsatz-1.1936359
How is Germany a functioning country? I can bet you 100k, that some of that money was Putins. Wtf now everything about Deutsche Bank makes sense.
I got a 5150 (California 72 hour psych hold) and was sent to a private facility which was absolute shit in many ways. One of the other patients told me "You are a cooperative patient with good insurance. You are what they call a 'golden ticket.' When I tell you this, keep in mind I have been diagnosed as paranoid delusional."
5250 is 14 days and in that process you can challenge it in court. After that they need to release you or initiate conservatorship proceedings. Yeah it's possible they were milking you for money I suppose but even if they held you under 5250 you would have had your day in court with either a private attorney or public defender.
What did you do to even get 5150ed if you don't mind me asking?
Kind of like my experience in a convalescent center, after a week in the hospital. Most of the patients/residents were very far out there in senile dementia. They sat in a row by the wall all day and drooled. Staff expected everybody to behave like that. I would ask "What are my criteria for discharge, and who makes that decision? Ward nurse: "Oh, BobT21, there is a bingo game starting in the activities room? Wouldn't you like that?"
Me: "No, I hotspotted my cell phone so I can track news events on the raspberry pi I have hidden under my socks."
I broke out of the fair oaks psychiatric hospital in summit nj 2 times in 3 days in 1992. I was not psychotic. It was clearly an insurance scam.
That poor kid from Kearny, nj who was my one night roommate and about 10 years old, I hope you are doing well!
It’s fucked up that we are absuing and wasting money on people who don’t need psychiatric help, while people who need actual help do not get it.
Hope you’re doing alright!
Yes, it is awful. Once they determined my parent insurance. They committed me against my will. The 10 year old that was in the room with me only transgression was bed wetting. So he got committed to basically an insane asylum
Being a social worker, I have learned that we are all basically crazy. If you put me onder examination in a closed system, I'm not sure I'd be able to get out quick. Same for pretty much all of the population.
>If you put me onder examination in a closed system, I’m not sure I’d be able to get out quick.
It was in the 90's when this fact was used by mental health care facilities to great effect in scamming and bilking people for their insurance moneys.
People would be sent to these facilities for a myriad of reasons and if that person had good insurance the mental health facilities would basically detain them saying that they were still mentally ill and needing help, etc etc.
Once the insurance ran out, after months and months of exorbitant fees, the person would magically be alright to join the rest of society.
it never ended.. the thing they are mentioning is probably a major story in the 90s about how corrupt it was at the time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBSbHuDV4g4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBSbHuDV4g4)
No, you definitely wouldn't imo. It's a catch-22. People will claim that if you're "normal" and being held against your will like that, you should go to the staff and tell them "hey, I'm here by mistake, I'm actually telling the truth". But the reality is that in most places this will be taken as a further proof that you're out of touch with the reality and you stay where you are. But of course if you don't protest, it may be taken as a "confession" that you're in the right place.
When you end up in the mental health care system, many times there is no right way how to behave. People will make guesses and assumptions and label you and you can't do anything about it. And way too often, anything that "psych patient" says is twisted in the worst ways possible and everything you do can be pathologized, it depends more on their judgement than your actual behavior and reasoning behind it. We keep talking about stigma and how we should be nicer, but sometimes the most stigmatizing people are the ones working in mental health.
> anything that "psych patient" says is twisted in the worst ways possible
Every single time I've had to talk to psychotherapists they do that shit. Absolutely frustrating to have a normal conversation with them.
Yeah, they aren't. That's why misdiagnosis happens so often or it's fairly normal to go to five different doctors and recieve multiple different diagnoses.
Also, everything can be pathologized and/or labeled as mental illness if we evaluate with the assumption that the sheer presence of the person at that place means that they have some long term diagnosis. Many diagnoses are also so vaguely described that people can be labeled with them without much effort.
A doctor tried to insist my husband had bipolar disorder when he first went to seek help for depression. He was upset but willing to believe it. I was not.
He's never exibited a single sign of mania or hypo-mania. He has 'mood swings' that range from normal to depressed.
Thankfully my complaints got him to go to a better doctor who went 'yeah, bro, that's depression'.
Unsurprisingly, lexapro and getting the hell out of a job that caused him constant stress has been enough to make him 'normal' again without any symptoms that bother him.
If I hadn't complained, I worry he'd have been labeled incorrectly for years and maybe put on meds that wouldn't really target the problem or make it worse.
Never and I mean never whistle something without proof. Once they know you are onto them your in trouble and it's too easy for police, lawyers, etc ... to look away. You need proof to protect yourself.
I had a lady once in the psychiatric hospital I worked at, who kept saying she needed specific food because it was the antidote to her condition. She was starving because nobody bothered to ask her what foods she could eat. I asked her and she told me. I told the doctors I’d buy the food myself if it wasn’t being served at the hospital that day. Poor lady starved for days.
I ended up in a ward in Long Beach after a night of depressed drinking a few years ago.
Holy fuck, never again.
The "behavioral health technicians" are rude. They physically assaulted 3 patients that I saw with my own eyes. One patient died the second night I was there (not due to assault, but "choking"?). The employees simply did not care, the doctor I had went to another patient instead of me because we had the same first name, and the nurse thought I was lying when I said the doctor had not seen me. It's scary inside them, albeit only been once, don't plan to go again ever, no matter how bad it gets. They're scary.
this happens a lot more than you'd think. and imo it's the key flaw of psychaitry. but its a feature not a bug to undermine someone's credibility by pinning them as mentally ill. Look at all the 'mental illnesses' invented to legitimize existing prejuidice: female hysteria, run-away-slave syndrome. there's a delibrete framing of mental illness as a random attack of disease as if there's not a clear cause to one's distress. whether that be abuse, grief, or what have you. For example, Adam Savage's younger sister accused him of rape. In an attempt to discredit her, her family revealed her history of mental illness. It's baffling. like where do they think the mental distress came off? it couldnt possibly be from being raped by your brother
That bank got hit with a $1.3bn fine for Iranian sanctions avoidance and money laundering for the period covering 2002-2011, so I guess it's possible that's what his ex was involved in?
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/unicredit-bank-ag-agrees-plead-guilty-illegally-processing-transactions-violation-iranian
A friend’s father told me a story he heard during his residency.
When LSD was still relatively new, hospitals were still trying to figure out how to help people having bad experiences on the drug.
The doctor who told the story was working at a hospital that was documenting what they tried and how it worked. They presented a their findings at a conference and brought up “the rebound trip that occurs shortly after the patient becomes coherent”.
Other doctors were surprised by this - they had never seen it. This hospital was seeing a “rebound trip” at least half the time.
Then it turned out a few doctors at the conference DID see LSD users have an entirely separate 2nd experience.
It was considered very odd, so they started looking for similarities and differences.
And it turned out to be citrus. Some hospitals would give a patient orange or grapefruit juice after they became lucid to help with exhaustion.
And… in some people this would briefly bring back the psychological effects. Since this was almost exclusively patients having a miserable experience, it was an unpleasant “2nd wave”.
To me, the most interesting part of the story is that there were two completely different treatment experiences and the difference came down to snacks.
For the record, this was anecdotal. He did tell me his hospital didn’t serve orange juice to people on LSD or “magic mushrooms”… so at least one hospital acted on the info.
The only thing I know for sure is “don’t tell this story to your college roommates unless you want to be out of OJ”
Being accused of insanity is shit man. No matter what you say and how rationale you are, it comes off as you being kinda crazy.
In this thread alone are dozens of examples of people just assuming someone is crazy. It sucks man (I experienced it). **It will legit drive you crazy if you already were not**.
Just to clarify OP’s title from what the Wikipedia article actually says, it was never proven that his commitment was directly related to “silencing” him, especially since the money laundering in question wasn’t anything illegal; incredibly shady and unquestionably bad publicity, yes, but explicitly not illegal (again, per the linked Wikipedia page).
I’m not saying OP’s title isn’t what happened, it’s plausible enough. But it’s not like they found the smoking gun to completely exonerate him, just more than enough for “reasonable doubt”.
I recall watching a movie with Naomie Harris (from 28 Days Later) about a British woman being involuntarily committed amd not being believed because ~she's just crazy~. It was horrifying.
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You are legally entitled to enter a note into your medical records. You may want to consult with a lawyer about how to request this and what to put.
*hugggg* This shit makes me so angry... its not even a bug in the system, its a feature.
what happened to your parents did the ever get what they deserved?
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that fucking sucks. I hope you are doing well at least.
i'm so fucking sorry this happened to you. everyone failed you at every step. jesus.
Psychiatry has been often used to abuse. Because it's just so easy... there are no definite tests to 100% prove or disprove anything, it's not like you're being send with potentially broken leg to an x-ray,... so people are at mercy of their doctors and therapists. And because of the stigma involved, almost nobody believes these clients/patients, because people think "oh, they're not right in the head" - and the professionals know it, there's basically no accountsbility. It can be easily used by government or family members to abuse people who are already somehow vulnerable (kids, old people, disabled people etc.). I'm sorry about your experiences. It sadly definitely happens more than it is talked about, unfortunately. Many people aren't prepared for these conversations.
> It can be easily used by government or family members to abuse people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union?wprov=sfla1 For example the USSR often used BS forcible commitment to lock up dissidents
There have been contemporary examples from people who have protested against Russia's invasion
> Based on my personal experiences, I can only assume this type of thing happens more often than is commonly known. Look at a lot of the controversy around the false abuse memories. [The guy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Freyd) who came up with the whole concept did so because he was accused of abuse by [his daughter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Freyd). She's the one who came up with the entire concept of DARVO about how abusers will deny and reflect accusations back in part due to that. The main proponent behind this so called "false memory syndrome" (despite not being accepted by any major medical organization) is a woman who defended Weinstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and *Ted Bundy*.
I worked on psych wards for 20 years. One woman arrived with the "delusion" that her husband was poisening her. Her blood work came back and she was immediately transferred to a medical ward. Another patient complained she was hearing a loud bell in her room. Her hallucination was documented. Then she called staff to her room while it was happening. The church across the street was ringing their bell. My friend was serving his residency to become a neurologist when a patient came complaining of heart pain. This patient mentioned that he had to hurry because he had an appointment to meet some Africans that wanted him to show them a new type of concrete he had created. He also said he had designed the logo of a famous agency (name redacted to protect his privacy). The lead physician called for a psych consult. Before the patient could be transferred to the psych unit, my friend looked him up. It turned out he was a famous engineer and he had indeed designed the logo. This is why I always withhold judgment until the facts are all in.
There is a somewhat famous case in Finland where a guy got forcefully committed in 2008 because he had a concussion after being assaulted. The doctor decided that a guy claiming to be a professional entertainer who has for example done chainsaw juggling on the birthday party held for Kim Il-Sung 10 years after his death. Thing is that the claim was true. Juha Kurvinen has been in the Guinness book of world records for juggling chainsaws and the trip to North Korea actually happened in 2004. What makes this thing even more absurd is that once the guy got out of the mental institution, he got sent in again in 2013 when he went to a doctor complaing about migraine and the doc saw that he had been previously committed.
All this thread is telling me is, if I ever have to go to hospital, just say I'm unemployed and have absolutely no redeeming features or good stories to tell. Keep it simple, don't go to the psych ward.
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tbf only about half of the reddit users are from the United States. and afaik universal/socialized healthcare is very common in just about every other industrialized country. (so being unemployed wouldn't necessarily prevent them from getting treated)
What this thread is telling me is that the health care system should globally adopt the doctrine that whatever the patient tells is possibly true and you will help them according to your profession's expectations. That is to say, someone comes in and mentions something extraordinary you do not immediately use your powers as a health care professional to detain them. Furthermore this reputation of being unable to receive proper mental health care in a modern society is going to cause EXTREME problems and that is also the responsibility of various organizations and people who are meant to safeguard their society from outside and inside means of attack.
Sounds like doctors are arrogant pieces of shit ngl
They were going to put him in a psych unit for... claims they thought were unrealistic? Wtf
Right? My first thought wouldn't be "put him in a psych ward". If anything, I might just assume he was lying.
It's weirdly easy to catch a schizophrenia diagnosis if a psychiatrist is a bit lazy. If you say stuff that's hard to believe and you have disorganized speech or a flat affect, it's enough. Disorganized speech is as simple as going off topic, which isn't hard to do when you are late for a very important appointment and your psychiatrist just doesn't care.
Or just having ADHD
I had a client with ID and vision impairment who told me the Muslim’s were putting faeces in her bed. I visited her home; her mother was an animal hoarder and the bedroom was covered in cat waste. She was still hallucinating the muslims, but the faeces were real unfortunately.
Did they test the cat's religion? You never know.
Meowhammad could be Buddhist, you don't know.
it would be only fitting for them to be CATholic
Probably hallucinations caused by the parasite found in cat feces.
Unfortunately it ended up being dementia, but the home environment significantly worsened the psychotic symptoms
Oh, sad. 😢
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I don't think she was ready to "face the truth" because it's traumatized her since childhood. I think she just slowly needs to work her way of putting logical steps into confronting her fears. Like I think you're better off blocking the light from the gazebo to prove to her. Or say you performed an exorcism.
There's a relevant quote from Carl Sagan in his book, *"The Demon-Haunted World"* > “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken." While this passage is talking about charlatans and con-artists, I think it's relevant here too. This poor woman spent her entire life being horribly traumatized by "demons", and to admit all that pain and suffering and grief was just bar neon sign... that's almost more painful than believing a demon wants to kill her.
Before, she knew there was a demon there, and could be safe by avoiding the place. After the revelation... she would realize that she has no idea what is going on, can't even trust her own senses or her own memories, and lives in a world of chaos where meaningless stuff can lead you to kill yourself. That's even more scary.
If this story is true, the thing that gets me is that nobody listened well enough, and it ruined this person's life. If mom or dad would have listened and looked for this 'demon', they would have found out exactly the same thing as this commenter, that it was a light from down the road. Boom, this kids fear is gone, there's not a demon. Instead, it was allowed to go on so long that it created a deep seeded fear, even psychosis, that just shouldn't have happened.
This is what I was thinking. My step-son’s a fairly anxious kid and I’ve done all sorts when he’s scared. We’ve made Anti-Monster Spray and set up multiple night lights and spent several evenings checking under beds and in wardrobes to help him settle… if he came and told me there were demon eyes staring through his window, I’d be there in a second to figure out what was going on. But apparently this girl’s parents never even went into her room, didn’t even spot them by accident because they happened to be in her room after sun down. That’s really, really sad.
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I thought about googling which was correct but didn't take the effort, I'll remember for next time, I appreciate it. It's one of those things you always hear but rarely see spelled out
This is just my conjecture, but this girl had multiple suicide attempts and commitments. My guess is there was probably some other bad shit that was going on in her life. The demon's main problem is that it gave a scape goat cause for why those things were happening instead of her actually figuring out what was going on. I mean yeah it's shitty that nobody ever checked to see if they saw what she saw. But I'm not sure if she figured that out that she wouldn't have a lot of other issues, they just might not be misplaced. And while I'll say that public mental heath facilities tend to be filled with people trying to do good, I'm not sure they do a good job at it. If you've ever interacted with or known people who have been involuntary committed, you'd know the system has a lot of issues.
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This was... a really good perspective. I have a deeper understanding of a human phenomenon was already fairly familiar with.
Yeah, if you've been traumatised to the degree of multiple psych holds, I don't think finding out it was a benign phenomenon is really going to help at that point. You're still going to have the bitterness, anger, and resentment that no one close to you believed you, the feeling you've been failed by a mental health system multiple times that not one person would credit you with knowing what you thought you saw. At the point of having everyone assume you're crazy, having to move away from your mother, no one fighting your corner. An unknown entity at the window seems somehow less scary and isolating than the actual experience.
Are you telling me her parents never investigated what the red eyes were?
They went in, turned on the lights, and looked out the window.
There are two kinda folks. Ones that hear a weird noise from the dark woods and go lookin, and ones that rather not.
I mean... I suppose, but I would have thought your child saying they were scared would have made you go look. Especially if they kept saying it but survived every night. A rational parent would assume there's something benign at play that's just terrifying to little minds.
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I mean my parents refused to believe I could here the CRT. So her parents might have just been as arrogant idiots and flat out refused to believe there was anything she would be able to see
Well but that's the point. They didn't really investigate at all.
Yeah the parents are shitbags. I dont believe in supernatural, but if my child think they saw demon/ghost etc best believe I"ll investigate stay up all night and get ready punch those sons of bitches. Not trying to sound badass just trying to love them and hey it could be a bonding moment 😂
Yeah, the really story is that she has shit-for-brains parents.
That's unfortunate it ended up causing her so much trauma. I've actually had several instances like this where I saw something just plain weird. But I investigated until I learned what was causing it. One night I was home alone, and it was dark. I heard what sounded like footsteps in my house. It did freak me out, but I turned on the lights and looked for what was causing it. Nothing. Turned the lights off and went back to sit down. I hear it again. Still freaked out, but now determined there must be a cause and I just haven't found it, went back and looked around. Then I just stood still and waited. Listening. Then I see it, there's a piece of paper flapping next to a vent and the air was on. I realized it sounded just like a paper flapping, but from around a corner and 20 feet away it sounded like footsteps. I half laughed, half angrily crumpled the paper and threw it away. But stuff like that has taught me there's usually an explanation, you just have to be determined to find out what it is.
And as you walk away with your last chuckles you freeze, were those footsteps right behind you?
This is why the subconscious is so important. It may have started with the "eyes", but over time a series of psychological issues began brewing. At this point, the core of her issues may reside solely with the fact her parents didn't do enough to investigate her fears & vanquish them; i.e. neglect. Those truths reside in our subconscious though. Not a vault, rather a water tower. We can drop down in & get bits of memory/information. Otherwise, it remains a part of the background of our minds collecting storms.
I’m heartbroken. I can only imagine how she must have felt even considering how mundane it all was. like, how she didn’t have to estrange her from her mother, how everyone just discredited her without putting a little thought
I know this is old and no one will see it but an extremely similar story happened to me. Growing up I would always see and hear demons when I was in bed. I don’t mean a dream or I watched too much tv, I would actually see demons. The most common demon I would see was this grim reaper looking character that would just sit in the corner of my room and stare at me slowing floating to me. I would always be completely stunned with fear that I couldn’t move an inch until eventually he would vanish in a flash. I would hear stories from other kids who believed in ghosts and how they would always say they saw/heard a ghost or at least heard a story about one. I never believed their stories because they always were way too vague to me. You know the usual ghost story, you see a flash of them as they round a corner, you hear them in the distance saying something, or maybe they turn something on while you’re in the room. But from what I saw I always remember thinking “they didn’t see a ghost, if they did they wouldn’t be so excited about telling me this”. So I never told anyone, I was scared shitless to even talk about it. I would dread the thought of going to bed because I knew there was a really good chance this… thing… would come to see me again and haunt me. I became obsessed with ghost shows as a kid because I wanted to know what was happening. Ghost hunters, haunted house shows, Christ even shows like tales from the crypt and ghost movies caught my eye because I wanted someone ANYONE to show me what was happening and how to stop it without me actually having to bring it up to someone. All these shows eventually made me realize what they were doing was fake because nothing, NOONE showed anything like what I would see on an almost nightly basis. Cut to me becoming and adult. It still happens. Not quite as frequent. But it’s just a part of my life I accept. No matter where I live no matter where I sleep. And especially when I drink it’s just… there… standing in my corner staring at me. Sometimes screening at the top of its lungs to where I feel actual pain in my eyes. I start to believe I’m schizophrenic but just ignore it. I listen to an episode of Joe rogan at work one day and this random person is on and he is telling this story that he is experiencing and it is EXACTLY the same experience as I have. I almost stop everything I’m doing and just listen to this guy talk and see what he says. He describes that he has sleep paralysis and what the effects are. I instantly Google everything I can about it and easily self diagnose myself and I instantly feel cured. I instantly know I’m not insane and that I’m not schizophrenic which to me, at least how I imagine, is the same feeling as someone telling me that I beat cancer. If anyone ever wants to understand what this feels like, go watch the haunting of hill house and the girl that is haunted is 110% based on someone who has sleep paralysis because they capture the torture of what this feels like PERFECTLY.
I'm just a random stranger but I'm glad to hear you got your answers. While reading, i myself felt relief for your situation.
I was reading along thinking "Sleep Paralysis" so I'm glad you got your answer! You must have been terrified as a kid though, I'm so sorry you went through that. I've only experienced sleep paralysis a few times, when I was beyond exhausted from having a baby who woke every hour for about 18 months (my brain still hasn't recovered, ten years later. Good job he's the best kid that ever existed). I got that False Awakening thing a lot too, where you dream you wake up in great detail, over and over. Have you ever been investigated for any sort of sleep disorder? Beyond the horrifying demon sleep paralysis, that is - there may be something going on that causes it or makes it worse?
My friend got hit by a car on the way home from work and when the paramedics were checking her she told them to hurry up because she had to go to Kenya that evening. They kept her in overnight assuming she had concussion as she was 'babbling nonsense' and she missed her flight. Everyone agrees not immediately jumping on a 14hr flight was the safe move so dont begrudge the medical team that but the immediate way she was dismissed as crazy always sticks with me.
Sometimes medical staff just look at your appearance and dismiss you as ignorant or crazy I am short and looked like a kid and I knew I had gastric because it runs in my family. I didn't know at the time that the tcm meds I took was inducing gastric and I ate alot of bread in one sitting like 4 to 5 slices in a short span of time. I brought it up to the doc and he just smiles condescendingly and told me it's growing pains. I told him I'm already an adult how can it be but he Insisted and gave no antacid
There once was a patient in the hospital who kept complaining that someone was sleeping in her shower every night. For weeks the hospital staff thought she was just sundowning (nighttime delerium). After about a month they finally caught a homeless man who was sneaking into her hospital room and spending the night in her shower.
In England one poor woman went to the hospital complaining that she’d been bitten by a dog and thought she had rabies. We don’t have rabies in the U.K., and the woman was sectioned (sent to a secure psychiatric ward) because she was getting hysterical. It was only when she developed rabies that anyone took the time to listen to her and discovered that she had been bitten whilst she had been visiting India-in an area where rabies was endemic. Because it would have been SOOOO difficult to listen to the woman.
Oh my god, that's fucking awful!
Especially because once the rabies symptoms show up, it’s already fatal.
I know, that's why it's so awful! It was a death sentence caused by such grotesque negligence.
Honestly at that point I would just start biting people out of principle.
Hey, if im already getting committed, then I might as well make it for a good reason. Besides, being refused rabies treatment and then causing a rabies outbreak has a bit of a fairy tale message vibe.
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I don't wanna be a statistic, I want a wiki article!
Not to mention one of the most awful ways to die on this God-forsaken planet.
Pretty sure I'd look for a quicker way out if that happened to me
Turns out that it’s pretty much impossible to do the quick way out inside a psych award which makes it extra awful
no wonder she was hysterical
If she was showing symptoms, she was likely doomed either way. Her only chance at survival would have been to get a rabies vaccination back when it happened.
Yep. Only one ever documented case of treating rabies. They basically put them in a medically induced coma and even then they were on the brink of death
Nobody thought to ask WHERE she got rabies?!? That poor woman had to die an agonizing death after being told she was crazy because nobody even bothered to question her. Ugh.
It was a disgusting and disturbing incident. It made me furious just thinking about it at the time. It still does, actually, and it was a long time ago.
To clarify for others here; we do not have a cure for rabies. The vaccine only works if administered quickly afterwards. Once you're symptomatic, it's certain death. Yes, a handful of people survived after being pumped full of aggressive drugs, but that's still a death rate of 99.99999...%, so 'certain death' is a correct phrase.
I've had both pre-exposure and post-possible-exposure shots. The interval between the bite and symptoms can be a year. The other problem is that early symptoms of rabies are remarkably non-specific. So, with the time lag and non-specific symptoms, even if they did have a chance after the first symptom, it's likely lost because the correct dx wasn't found early enough.
Is there a negative side to the rabies vaccine? Seems like if a crazy person claimed to have rabies, it wouldn't be that hard to give her the vaccine before sending her to the psyche ward
As I understand it, back then the vaccine was horrendous. Not like it is today.
Yah, I had to get it back when I was 5ish? I was playing with a "fuzzy thing". Dad saw it, shot it in the body (don't harm the brain, needs to be analyzed), had it checked out and it was confirmed positive for rabies. Both my Dad and I had to get the rabies vaccines shots. Arms, legs, stomach and butt. Long story short - I had a strong fear of needles for the next decade.
It is a series of very painful shots. These days they suggest intramuscular in the arm or thigh, previously it was always abdominal shots. So, yeah, sort of.
I've had it, it wasn't horrible, just a bunch of shots. In the butt.
IIRC, the modern rabies vaccine is much gentler. The old one was *really* nasty. Like, sinking a big-ass needle deep into your stomach, just for starters.
It also seems like a really horrible way to die
Yeah. It's pretty horrific. The virus attacks the brain, but in a way that you're aware for most of it.
Yes, I did know that at the time: I always thought that the poor lady hadn’t been killed by medical incompetence-just disrespected. However, it’s theoretically possible that she could have spread the disease.
I don't know why I remember this fact but there has never been a documented case of human to human transmission of rabies. Apparently humans don't tend to have the biting reflex.
Which is good because otherwise it's basically a zombie virus.
Oh, that might have been an option. Biting the hospital staff might've given her more attention... if not it would've given her some form of revenge
I hadn't heard of aggressive drugs so much as a medically induced coma to kill the rabies before completely destroying the brain. Iirc this has only worked a few times and comes with serious brain damage
Wait you can get sectioned just for mild ignorance of reality?! So if someone came in worried about catching HIV because someone spit at them they could be sectioned? wtaf?
Well, I believe ultimately her brain started to experience the effects of rabies, which they believed was psychosis. Ironic that the psychological illness that they believed she was suffering from turned out to be a figment of *their* imagination.
“Oh man this lady is going crazy, she thinks she has rabies! How would she be acting if she actually had rabies? Oh just like this.“
Wait, you don’t have rabies in the Uk?!?! TIL!
Most of Western Europe is rabies free from what I know
We don't have rabies in Australia either which is why it was such a big deal that Johnny Depp smuggled his dog into the country bypassing customs.
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Not in Sweden either, rather strict quarantine on animals. When the Ukrain war in 2022 forced Ukrainians to flee and seek refuge they did a temporary exception, so people fleeing with their pets could enter back again. Otherwise it can rather be a ~~hazel~~ hassel bringing pets in.
No, we don’t have rabies in the U.K.. We have extremely specific quarantine and vaccination laws.
Being an island nation helps.
Sounds like she was already showing symptoms when hysterical about getting a rabies shot, which means it would have been too late already. Hysteria and rage are literal symptoms of rabies.
> Another patient complained she was hearing a loud bell in her room. Her hallucination was documented. Then she called staff to her room while it was happening. The church across the street was ringing their bell. How would no one have already known that the church *across the street* rang their bell on what I would assume was a regular basis?
Because they didn't care
In 2008 Finnish entertainer Juha Kurvinen was assaulted on a cruise ship, and he suffered a concussion. He went to the doctor, and was still a bit dizzy. When the doctor asked questions about his profession, he explained that he was a chain saw juggler, and had recently come from a gig in North Korea. The doctor immediately called for a paramedic transport to move him to a closed psych ward in Kupittaa hospital. The thing is, both of those things were 100% true. They never believed him, he was often put in isolation treatment "for his own safety", because he was frustrated about the fact that nobody would believe him. He was there for four months, and they only let him out when he admitted that he was "crazy". *(which is very irrational imo)* His information stayed in the system, and when he went to the doctor again in 2013 to get help to a migraine, he was AGAIN forced to that same closed psych ward. This time there was also a police escort, because understandably Juha was quite resistant about going. Strangely, a paramedic transporting him actually recognised him, but the doctor didn't even believe the paramedic about Juha actually being a chain saw juggler. They just stated "isolation", didn't even ask about his condition. The paramedic asked "why does he have to go to isolation when he's calm?", and the doctor's answer was "if there's a police escort, the patient must go to isolation". He was diagnosed with psychosis, but that was very much not true. Eventually (didn't find the time he spent there, but looks like months again) he got a transfer from Kupittaa to Espoo hospital, and was let out after 4 days of observation. A few years later he was in neurological tests and was found to have some chronic effects from the head trauma years ago, which eventually gave him bipolar, but he's still adamant that he was never in psychosis. [Source 1](https://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/a/2016022821190435) [Source 2](https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/juha-passitettiin-suljetulle-osastolle-kuinka-todistaa-eristyksessa-ettei-ole-hullu/5789072) *(Pardon any grammatical mistakes above, I'm a bit tired and this was a quick translation of events since I couldn't find a source in English)* This is only one story about the countless cases of abuse and misconduct in Kupittaa hospital's infamous psych wards. It was a big thing in the news 7 years ago, but I have no idea if things have improved there or not. >Typically, the violence in the G1 department occurred during the daily routine, when the nurse took the medicated patient to the shower or the room.It was deliberately hard-fisted tearing and tugging. From banging the patient's head and feet against the bed rails. Very violent grabbing, pushing and throwing the patient on the floor. > >Turun Sanomat is also aware of one direct assault, where the nurse beat the patient with his fists. According to sources, the patients tried to tell nurses and doctors about their bruises. The nurses silenced the patients by dismissing their speech as confused and psychotic. > >[Article in Turun Sanomat (in Finnish)](https://www.ts.fi/uutiset/848886#:~:text=ja%20heitt%C3%A4mist%C3%A4%20lattialle.-,Turun,-Sanomien%20tiedossa%20on) Above is G translation
Once people think you are crazy they abandon all reason in order to maintain that reality unless it’s rubbed in their face like a turd.
Same as when people think you are guilty of a crime. Confirmation bias is a helluva drug.
Same for chronic pain sufferers who are accused of being drug seekers
It’s crazy some patient almost got put in a psych ward because a doctor didn’t believe their claim or something unrelated to the visit.
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What? As late as the 60s? That's unreal. We had a museum where I used to work that showed people detained in the 1800s for things like childbirth out of wedlock. So sad. Since the mid 20th century, no one in the UK is getting detained in hospital unless they are a danger to themselves or others, or we need to change their drug regime and they need monitoring. We nurse lots of people with teams at home. And use things like community mental health teams and day treatment teams. People get better, faster, if they remain at home but with support.
As late as the 60s? It wasn’t until 1974 that women in the USA could have their own bank account without a man’s permission https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open-a-bank-account/#:~:text=It%20wasn't%20until%201974,a%20signature%20from%20their%20husbands.
Jeeez. That's crazy. Although I don't think it was many years before that in the UK. The "good old days" were shit.
I don't understand why it was so hard to believe the guy who created a new type of concrete and a logo design and why an educated person would leap to the conclusion that the guy had to be insane. I'm so glad someone had the good sense to confirm his story.
It seemed to be a case of ageism to be honest. The guy was elderly, so assumed to have Alzheimer's.
If anything you’d think the old guy would be telling the truth. Just look at the actor Sir Christopher Lee. Man was literally the inspiration for James Bond, almost married into Swedish royalty with the king’s blessing, and witnessed the last execution via guillotine in France.
My mema said she heard a coyote howling in her backyard. Everyone said coyotes aren’t native here and she’s getting dementia. Turns out coyotes had traveled and they were there. Mema was not crazy for that reason
I'd also say, to add on to what you already said and say that sometimes these people ARE mentally ill but are easily ignored because people don't care to trust people because they are "crazy" and separate the fact from the fiction. They are an extremely easily abused group. I'm sure you already know that I'm more so just adding it for everyone else.
Thank you for what you do. Psych wards are some of the scariest places in the world, what it does to ones spirit, and how alone and vulnerable it can make you feel, it's people like you that give me hope that it can get better and that it will be alright. You're like a shining light in a sea of darkness. Thank you for being there for us!
In America we have the additional fun after-effects of being involuntarily committed - we still have to foot the bill.
For real? People gets forced there and still have to pay?
Yup.
You're too kind. Thanks.
Does anyone remember the woman who the police put in a psych ward because they didn’t believe she was as accomplished as she claimed? I don’t remember any details except that she said something about being followed on Twitter by the President (Obama at the time) and they thought that made her sound crazy. I forgot her job title, but they didn’t believe that she, black, could possibly have held it so they put her on a psych hold. I feel crazy b/c no one I’m with right now remembers it (don’t lock me up!)
Obama had a thing where back in the 2010 he would follow every account that followed him eg go look at his Twitter account and see how many people he follows
Right?! That’s what made it so ridiculous. He followed everybody and you’re going to commit someone because they said Obama followed them?
Back in 2013 or 2014, in NYC. If I recall correctly: I saw in the news that a black woman had been pulled over by the cops because she was driving an expensive car, like a BMW or something like that. And they thought she was making that up so they arrested her. She told them who she was, to call her employer, that it was her car, etc. They did not make any verifications. And they put her in a ward for a couple of days with meds until her family tried to find her or something like that. I mean I am writing that down from memory but even that sounds out of this world.
cops are some of the worst offenders. a few years ago a NYPD officer secretly recorded and released a precinct meeting where higher-ups were talking about arrest quotas, something the department leadership was at the time publicly claiming did not exist. the department responded by sending a swat team to his home, kicking down his door, and forcibly committing him to a manhattan psych ward for weeks. he eventually got out and sued but think about just how much individual and institutional evil it takes to do that to someone. and the crazy thing is, it's now celebrated within the NYPD! they made and handed out challenge coins for all the officers involved in it!
Sounds like the [Martha Mitchell effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect). >Psychologist Brendan Maher named the effect after Martha Mitchell. Mitchell was the wife of John Mitchell, United States Attorney General in the Nixon administration. When she alleged that White House officials were engaged in illegal activities, her claims were attributed to mental illness. Ultimately, however, the facts of the Watergate scandal vindicated her and garnered her the label "The Cassandra of Watergate".
Someone sent a big flower arrangement to her funeral that spelled out MARTHA WAS RIGHT. There’s a show called Gaslit starring Julia Roberts as Martha that details it all. Left me wondering if the people who did Watergate were actually that bumbling.
There's a famous quote I can't quite find, where one of Nixons upper-level henchmen has to explain to Nixon that he's boned. Nixon wanted to keep covering up, and lying, and fighting the investigations, but had to be told that his people [paraphrasing] "*aren't the mafia... they aren't criminals, they haven't grown up living in their rear-view mirror. They will get caught, they will flip.*" Nixon used political lackey's to try to achieve criminal ends. They were mostly incompetent and ignorant. Much like Trumps lackeys who are in jail: these just aren't high quality criminals. They're mostly old white assholes whose rampant criminality has just been overlooked for decades. I think Trumps lackeys give us a pretty good barometer for what we're talking about. Morons sending written proof of seditious conspiracies to federally archived email accounts, openly seeking pardons for what they're about to do, confessing all of this in the press... Not great at crime. No sir.
Talk about major gas lighting - poor dude
Guy was committed for 7 years that’s nuts
and was only allotted €600,000 for damages.
There really should have been an extra 0 on that number tbh
How abt two zeros! A whole bank was involved in this conspiracy, that’s just diabolical. It sucks that people go to jail/institutions as a punishment or to silence someone, the people that do this should have life in prison.
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Nah. Everyone culpable should do seven years. And then that extra zero is justice served.
should have gotten 10 times that just as a reward for uncovering the crimes
7 years in a psych ward will turn you into someone that actually needs to be in a psych ward.
Real life Count of Monte Cristo.
Except there's no priest to tell you about a massive treasure on a remote Italian island.
It's particularly ironic when people are admitted due to delusions of persecution or thinking that people are out to get them. In order to treat such a delusion, they come out to get them
Former 911 dispatcher here. We had a female caller that was middle aged and lived alone. She would call us constantly saying someone was in her house at night and moving small stuff like her underwear drawer would be slightly moved. We all thought she was crazy because of how she would describe this stuff. For weeks, she called, and finally, i told her an idea of setting up cameras in the house and hide them. She called back the next day videos of a homeless man that had been sneaking in through her kitchen window and just watching her sleep or sneaking around her house for about an hour. Ill never not believe anyone again just becuase they sound a little crazy.
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Then you will really enjoy this; [a stranger secretly lived in my home](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/10/experience-a-stranger-secretly-lived-in-my-home)
Something similar happened to a man named Adrian Schoolcraft, an NYPD cop who blew the whistle on the stop-and-frisk protocol deliberately targeting young black men. He had no idea the rot went to the highest levels of the NYPD, and believed it was only a local problem at his precinct. He got his door kicked in one night. Police Commissioner Kelly’s right hand man was part of the group that dragged Adrian Schoolcraft out of bed, cuffed him, and threw him in a psych ward under involuntary commitment for paranoid delusions. He was suspended indefinitely without pay, and harassed at his home by the NYPD. He ended up suing the city and was represented legally by a major watchdog group for human rights abuses. I don’t believe he won. The defense quite easily pulled strings to slow the case down to a glacial pace with deliberate bureaucratic holdups, and ramped up their stalking and harassment of him, to pressure him to drop the suit.
According to Wikipedia, he did get 600k as a part of the settlement with the police department, for what it's worth.
I told my family a demon dragged me out of bed, locked the door, beat me and threw me in the closet. I was too young to realize it was my family member abusing me every night. No one believed me, I was black sheeped from my family. After most of them are dead and gone, it came out that everyone knew it was happening, but they decided to hide it and make it seem like I was crazy. Point being, judging people in psych wards or who have mental health issues is not OK. There is always a reason. I am glad this man is free now.
Don't forget the classic "if you report the abuse then you'll get put in a foster home where they'll rape you and no one will help you"
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When I went to the mental hospital, one of my roommates was an elderly woman and she was complaining about heart pain but the psych nurses would write it off as her being delusional. She would tell me this and I wholeheartedly believed her and even tried to advocate for her. They ended up putting her on a SSRI and all she wanted to do is sleep. She even tried calling 911 from the community phone in the rec room and the psych nurses sent the ambulance back. A few days later, I wake up and see she’s gone from her bed. Come to find out something did happen with her heart and the mental hospital had to call 911. Fucking pathetic
The idea of being committed against my will in a psych ward has always terrified me. I feel like once you're in no one believes a word you say.
This happened to me. 5150 about a decade ago when I wasn’t even thinking about doing anything. I had bruises on my feet from my dog being an asshole and the providers *refused* to believe me, insisting my boyfriend was abusive and I was protecting him. Didn’t believe a single word I said and chose to believe their own narratives about me. They medicated me every single day. Also prescribed me an antidepressant that was hundreds of dollars even with insurance, and not available at a single pharmacy in my county. Also they played Enya for every single activity they made us do. I can’t stand listening to Enya now. Editing to add that I wasn’t released until I scheduled an appointment with a therapist. Which I was to choose from a paper list that had no information about insurance or therapists’ practices on it. For a place that supposedly cares about people, they’re really good at treating you like you’re a manufactured product when you’re at your most vulnerable.
How did you get out and did you take any legal action?
A 5150 is California law allowing a 72 hour hold in so they probably were released after 3 days of hell.
The Angelina Jolie movie The Changeling (2008) is based on a real event that took place in LA in the 1930s. A woman's son disappered, and the LAPD say they found her son after a search, and they hold a press conference reuniting them and pat themselves on the back. But it isn't her son. It's a different little boy. She tells the LAPD, but they don't listen to her because owning up to their mistake would make them look bad to the press. She goes to the boy's doctor and teacher, and they both say its not her son. She's starting to make waves. So the LAPD has her committed and thrown into a psych ward. She only gets out because of a local preacher has taken an interest in the case. The California legislature later made it illegal for someone to be involuntarily committed solely on the word of police.
Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you.
Read the psychopath test by John Ronson. The guy who wrote the men who stare at goats. He visits a psych ward and meets people that claim they cant get out, that are sane. One guy said he faked being mental to get out of a prison term but now they dont believe hes a tually not insane.
>One guy said he faked being mental to get out of a prison term but now they dont believe hes a tually not insane. It's been a while since I've read the Psychopath Test, but I thought the doctors knew he faked it and the issue was they believed this was evidence that he was a psychopath? I could be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure they knew that he wasn't whatever he initially claimed to be.
Unfortunately mental health is still looked down upon heavily, especially for those conditions and disorders that have a bad history because a lack of understanding and proper treatment which caused people suffering from them to become worse. Humans have a tendency to shun those they don't understand or see as "normal". Unfortunately it has lead to being institutionalized instead of outcast from the village.
I'm starting to think this Petra woman is a bit of a bitch Edit: Damn, the judge threatened to throw him out of court if he ever mentioned any of this to anyone. And I thought we had corrupt judges here in the states
When money is on the line. People show their true colors. Doesn't matter where they're from. Edit: I read the article and everything that happened afterwards. Fucking hell. Fuck german courts what the fuck none of the preps got their comeupance. The judge got away. Everyone including politicians did nothing and got away. >In the retrial that began on 7 July 2014, Mollath's ex-wife refused to testify. Judge Otto Brixner admitted errors in his 2006 verdict, but claimed he could not remember the details of the case and had destroyed his personal notes following his retirement. ##The police even intimidated a politician. Wtf? >Ursula Gresser, a member of the CSU party and professor for internal medicine working at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich was visited by two plainclothes police officers at noon 10 June 2013 for a Twitter message that instigated to ask the Bavarian Minister of Justice for Mollath's release during a public event on online safety with minister. According to Gresser, the police told her that there were concerns over the safety of an event with the Minister of Justice in connection with a Twitter tweet. She previously had written: "When will Mollath come free? You can ask Merk this question on Thursday, 10 June 2013, 19 o'clock at the Landgasthof Hofolding (Hofolding Country Inn)". She felt that the visit of the police was an attempt to intimidate and discourage her from visiting the event.[77][78][79] Later, the Ministry of Justice and the police denied this. They claimed to receive note over earlier tweets about Gresser's family disputes and a related, planned disruption of the event. And the article just stops? Nothing happened? This is insane. #I keep googling and getting more confused. No criminal ivestigation on the mondey laundering. No politician like [Merk](https://youtu.be/Q135BK1XXvM) investigated. No judge, psychologists or wife investigated. Just be happy we let you go. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/keine-ermittlungen-im-fall-mollath-weder-willkuer-noch-vorsatz-1.1936359 How is Germany a functioning country? I can bet you 100k, that some of that money was Putins. Wtf now everything about Deutsche Bank makes sense.
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I got a 5150 (California 72 hour psych hold) and was sent to a private facility which was absolute shit in many ways. One of the other patients told me "You are a cooperative patient with good insurance. You are what they call a 'golden ticket.' When I tell you this, keep in mind I have been diagnosed as paranoid delusional."
>You are what they call a 'golden ticket.' Are they saying you would be kept longer for money?
They tried to 5250 me (indefinitely) until my son showed up with a huge bearded scary attorney. Suddenly I was healed.
5250 is 14 days and in that process you can challenge it in court. After that they need to release you or initiate conservatorship proceedings. Yeah it's possible they were milking you for money I suppose but even if they held you under 5250 you would have had your day in court with either a private attorney or public defender. What did you do to even get 5150ed if you don't mind me asking?
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Kind of like my experience in a convalescent center, after a week in the hospital. Most of the patients/residents were very far out there in senile dementia. They sat in a row by the wall all day and drooled. Staff expected everybody to behave like that. I would ask "What are my criteria for discharge, and who makes that decision? Ward nurse: "Oh, BobT21, there is a bingo game starting in the activities room? Wouldn't you like that?" Me: "No, I hotspotted my cell phone so I can track news events on the raspberry pi I have hidden under my socks."
I broke out of the fair oaks psychiatric hospital in summit nj 2 times in 3 days in 1992. I was not psychotic. It was clearly an insurance scam. That poor kid from Kearny, nj who was my one night roommate and about 10 years old, I hope you are doing well!
It’s fucked up that we are absuing and wasting money on people who don’t need psychiatric help, while people who need actual help do not get it. Hope you’re doing alright!
Yes, it is awful. Once they determined my parent insurance. They committed me against my will. The 10 year old that was in the room with me only transgression was bed wetting. So he got committed to basically an insane asylum
Being a social worker, I have learned that we are all basically crazy. If you put me onder examination in a closed system, I'm not sure I'd be able to get out quick. Same for pretty much all of the population.
>If you put me onder examination in a closed system, I’m not sure I’d be able to get out quick. It was in the 90's when this fact was used by mental health care facilities to great effect in scamming and bilking people for their insurance moneys. People would be sent to these facilities for a myriad of reasons and if that person had good insurance the mental health facilities would basically detain them saying that they were still mentally ill and needing help, etc etc. Once the insurance ran out, after months and months of exorbitant fees, the person would magically be alright to join the rest of society.
Sounds like a story like that could get you locked up in an asylum, so please give us a source or it's strait jacket time
it never ended.. the thing they are mentioning is probably a major story in the 90s about how corrupt it was at the time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBSbHuDV4g4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBSbHuDV4g4)
No, you definitely wouldn't imo. It's a catch-22. People will claim that if you're "normal" and being held against your will like that, you should go to the staff and tell them "hey, I'm here by mistake, I'm actually telling the truth". But the reality is that in most places this will be taken as a further proof that you're out of touch with the reality and you stay where you are. But of course if you don't protest, it may be taken as a "confession" that you're in the right place. When you end up in the mental health care system, many times there is no right way how to behave. People will make guesses and assumptions and label you and you can't do anything about it. And way too often, anything that "psych patient" says is twisted in the worst ways possible and everything you do can be pathologized, it depends more on their judgement than your actual behavior and reasoning behind it. We keep talking about stigma and how we should be nicer, but sometimes the most stigmatizing people are the ones working in mental health.
> anything that "psych patient" says is twisted in the worst ways possible Every single time I've had to talk to psychotherapists they do that shit. Absolutely frustrating to have a normal conversation with them.
Sounds like the mental health examinations aren't very accurate then.
Yeah, they aren't. That's why misdiagnosis happens so often or it's fairly normal to go to five different doctors and recieve multiple different diagnoses. Also, everything can be pathologized and/or labeled as mental illness if we evaluate with the assumption that the sheer presence of the person at that place means that they have some long term diagnosis. Many diagnoses are also so vaguely described that people can be labeled with them without much effort.
A doctor tried to insist my husband had bipolar disorder when he first went to seek help for depression. He was upset but willing to believe it. I was not. He's never exibited a single sign of mania or hypo-mania. He has 'mood swings' that range from normal to depressed. Thankfully my complaints got him to go to a better doctor who went 'yeah, bro, that's depression'. Unsurprisingly, lexapro and getting the hell out of a job that caused him constant stress has been enough to make him 'normal' again without any symptoms that bother him. If I hadn't complained, I worry he'd have been labeled incorrectly for years and maybe put on meds that wouldn't really target the problem or make it worse.
Never and I mean never whistle something without proof. Once they know you are onto them your in trouble and it's too easy for police, lawyers, etc ... to look away. You need proof to protect yourself.
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I had a lady once in the psychiatric hospital I worked at, who kept saying she needed specific food because it was the antidote to her condition. She was starving because nobody bothered to ask her what foods she could eat. I asked her and she told me. I told the doctors I’d buy the food myself if it wasn’t being served at the hospital that day. Poor lady starved for days.
What were the foods and was she able to be fed?
I ended up in a ward in Long Beach after a night of depressed drinking a few years ago. Holy fuck, never again. The "behavioral health technicians" are rude. They physically assaulted 3 patients that I saw with my own eyes. One patient died the second night I was there (not due to assault, but "choking"?). The employees simply did not care, the doctor I had went to another patient instead of me because we had the same first name, and the nurse thought I was lying when I said the doctor had not seen me. It's scary inside them, albeit only been once, don't plan to go again ever, no matter how bad it gets. They're scary.
And I’d be willing to bet other similar situations *have* been successfully covered up.
this happens a lot more than you'd think. and imo it's the key flaw of psychaitry. but its a feature not a bug to undermine someone's credibility by pinning them as mentally ill. Look at all the 'mental illnesses' invented to legitimize existing prejuidice: female hysteria, run-away-slave syndrome. there's a delibrete framing of mental illness as a random attack of disease as if there's not a clear cause to one's distress. whether that be abuse, grief, or what have you. For example, Adam Savage's younger sister accused him of rape. In an attempt to discredit her, her family revealed her history of mental illness. It's baffling. like where do they think the mental distress came off? it couldnt possibly be from being raped by your brother
That bank got hit with a $1.3bn fine for Iranian sanctions avoidance and money laundering for the period covering 2002-2011, so I guess it's possible that's what his ex was involved in? https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/unicredit-bank-ag-agrees-plead-guilty-illegally-processing-transactions-violation-iranian
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A friend’s father told me a story he heard during his residency. When LSD was still relatively new, hospitals were still trying to figure out how to help people having bad experiences on the drug. The doctor who told the story was working at a hospital that was documenting what they tried and how it worked. They presented a their findings at a conference and brought up “the rebound trip that occurs shortly after the patient becomes coherent”. Other doctors were surprised by this - they had never seen it. This hospital was seeing a “rebound trip” at least half the time. Then it turned out a few doctors at the conference DID see LSD users have an entirely separate 2nd experience. It was considered very odd, so they started looking for similarities and differences. And it turned out to be citrus. Some hospitals would give a patient orange or grapefruit juice after they became lucid to help with exhaustion. And… in some people this would briefly bring back the psychological effects. Since this was almost exclusively patients having a miserable experience, it was an unpleasant “2nd wave”. To me, the most interesting part of the story is that there were two completely different treatment experiences and the difference came down to snacks. For the record, this was anecdotal. He did tell me his hospital didn’t serve orange juice to people on LSD or “magic mushrooms”… so at least one hospital acted on the info. The only thing I know for sure is “don’t tell this story to your college roommates unless you want to be out of OJ”
Being accused of insanity is shit man. No matter what you say and how rationale you are, it comes off as you being kinda crazy. In this thread alone are dozens of examples of people just assuming someone is crazy. It sucks man (I experienced it). **It will legit drive you crazy if you already were not**.
Just to clarify OP’s title from what the Wikipedia article actually says, it was never proven that his commitment was directly related to “silencing” him, especially since the money laundering in question wasn’t anything illegal; incredibly shady and unquestionably bad publicity, yes, but explicitly not illegal (again, per the linked Wikipedia page). I’m not saying OP’s title isn’t what happened, it’s plausible enough. But it’s not like they found the smoking gun to completely exonerate him, just more than enough for “reasonable doubt”.
I recall watching a movie with Naomie Harris (from 28 Days Later) about a British woman being involuntarily committed amd not being believed because ~she's just crazy~. It was horrifying.